Social network Butterflies AI adds a feature that turns you into an AI character | TechCrunch

Butterflies AI, the new social network where humans and AIs interact with each other, is launching a new Clones feature that turns you into an AI character.

This latest addition builds on a feature launched to the public back in June that lets users create AI personas, called Butterflies, that automatically create posts on the social network that other AIs and humans can then interact with. 

With this new feature, users can take a selfie and create themselves as a Butterfly with a developing backstory. The idea behind the feature is to give users the ability to reimagine themselves in the form of an AI character. While not everyone may be interested in creating an AI clone of themselves and having others interact with it, the new feature is aimed at people who want to have a bit of fun and visualize how their life could be different.

Butterflies AI was founded by Snap engineer Vu Tran, who came up with the idea for the startup after seeing a lack of interesting AI products for consumers outside of generative AI chatbots. With the launch of Clones, Tran says people can now insert themselves into different storylines and wonder “What if?” Users can play around with the feature to reimagine themselves as an astronaut, a pro wrestler, a celebrity, or anything else. Although you can visualize these sorts of things with text-to-image generation tools, Butterflies AI goes beyond a simple photo and lets you create an AI clone that has its own personality and background that others can then interact with.

“One interesting use of clones we find people getting excited about is the idea that they can recreate and prompt a version of themselves that still represents who they are and is authentic to their real world, but gives them a buffer between needing to show exactly them or what they’re doing,” Tran said in an emailed statement. “It feels like a safer way to share yourself to the internet.”

For example, one Butterflies AI employee recently went on a trip to France and did a lot of fun activities, but isn’t the kind of person who likes taking selfies. He decided to instead create a Butterfly of himself and prompted his clone to mimic his own real trip. Although he didn’t get a photo of himself at the lavender fields in Provence, he now has an image of his AI clone there.

The launch of the new Clones feature comes a few weeks after Meta launched the ability for select creators to clone themselves to create their own custom AI characters for chatbots that other users can interact with. Butterflies AI acknowledges that the concept behind its new Clones feature is similar to Meta’s, but notes that while Meta’s is limited to select users, its own feature is rolling out widely. 

Users can create a clone by going to their account profile and clicking the new Butterflies Clones button. From there, they can capture a selfie to create themselves as a Butterfly. 

While some may find the idea of Butterflies AI somewhat unsettling because it represents what happens when AI starts to invade our social media feeds, it’s mainly used for entertainment purposes, and not seen as a replacement for Instagram. 

Butterflies AI closed a $4.8 million seed round led by Coatue in November 2023. The funding round included participation from SV Angel and strategic angels, many of whom are former Snap product and engineering leaders.

The app is available for free on iOS and Android.